Review: HELICOPTER EELA

The Story Too Goes Round And Round Like

Helicopter Blades,

But That's Okay, 'Cos Kajol Is So Beautiful!

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

When a mother lives for her son, obsesses over him, she forgets that he’s grown up and needs his space. Kajol - never before so beautiful - plays a helicopter single mom to Vivan and is so involved with his life that she even joins the same college as he, and makes his life miserable. What could have been a humongous parenting film, is just so frivolously written, that even moments of greatness are reduced to froth.

Main Review:

Kajol looks stunning. And that is perhaps the one thing that makes the film tolerable. What should have been a fantastic dive into the depths of obsession that a single mother could show for her only son or a joyful celebration of sarcasm and humor ends up so facile it induces multiple eye-rolls. Montage after mindless montage where ‘mumma’ and ‘viv’ do what some juvenile writer thinks is ‘creating‘ wonderful mother son moments. Cliches like ‘bring back the tupperware’ are used so many times, you want to yell at the screen, ‘We got that! All Indian mothers are obsessed with tupperware. Now show me something more!’ What we get are cameos from everyone who cared enough to show up: Amitabh Bachchan in his Who’s Going To Be A Millionaire avatar, singers Shaan, Ila Arun and even Baba Sehgal show up, as to Anu Malik and Mahesh Bhatt. It begins to smell like a parody...

Eela (the beautiful Kajol) is an aspiring singer, and gets a break in Bollywood when a music director hears her sing an ad film jingle. Pradeep Sarkar, the director of the film, is himself an advertising man, and manages to bring a smile on our faces with the flashback of Eela singing ad film jingles, being ambitious. But suddenly she’s running to the restroom with her child screaming, ‘Viv! Potty!’ and we are expected to believe that it’s just a natural progression of things when you get married… You hope something interesting is going to happen when she finds herself suddenly single. But it’s Bollywood! Everything is vanilla and super nice. She starts earning money by setting up a food service. And follows her kid around everywhere including school trips. There is no depth in the writing at all, or we would have heard better dialog than, ‘I thought you were only nine teachers so I showed up (at the school trip) to help.’ or even telling a skinny college gal, ‘Wear the skirt, it’s loose-fit on me!’ Seriously? A quintessential mommy saying that to a tall, skinny college co-ed?

Obviously the insistent, loud background music covers all this flawed writing. And drown out questions like: if she’s in college all day as a student, what is now her source of income? Why are her school leaving certificates at her mother-in-law’s home? Why do the filmmakers believe that the audience will find Kajol’s over enthusiastic behavior cute?   

As you emerge from this exhausting film you realise one thing: Kajol is so beautiful, so nothing else matters.

(this review appears on www.nowrunning.com )